Catheter ablation is a minimally invasive procedure used to remove or terminate a faulty electrical pathway from sections of the heart of a patient who is prone to developing cardiac arrhythmias.
U.S. Patent Application 2013/0123598 describes an MRI-compatible catheter, which includes an elongated flexible shaft having opposite distal and proximal end portions. A handle is attached to the proximal end portion and includes an actuator in communication with the shaft distal end portion that is configured to articulate the shaft distal end portion. The distal end portion of the shaft may include an ablation tip and includes at least one RF tracking coil positioned adjacent the ablation tip that is electrically connected to an MRI scanner. The at least one RF tracking coil is electrically connected to a circuit that reduces coupling when the at least one RF tracking coil is exposed to an MRI environment. Each RF tracking coil is a 1-10 turn solenoid coil, and has a length along the longitudinal direction of the catheter of between about 0.25 mm and about 4 mm.
U.S. Patent Application 2012/0189178 describes a method and an apparatus for automatically generating an optimal 2-dimensional (2D) medical image from a 3D medical image, at least one virtual plane crossing a 3D volume is generated from 3D volume image data for showing part of a patient's body in a 3D manner, at least one 2D image representing a cross section of the part of the patient's body is generated by applying the 3D volume image data to the virtual plane, and a 2D image suitable for diagnosis of the patient having a feature most similar to a target feature from among the at least one 2D image is output.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,135,185 describes a method of finding the location of an occluded portion of a blood vessel relative to a three-dimensional angiographic image of a subject's vasculature includes identifying the location of the occluded portion of the blood vessel on each of a series of displayed two dimensional images derived from the three dimensional image data in planes substantially transverse to direction of the occluded portion of the vessel. The identified locations in the occluded portion of the vessel can then be used to determine the path of the occluded portion of the vessel.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,961,924 describes a method and system for determining the three-dimensional location and orientation of a medical device distal end using a single-plane imaging system, using a computational model of the medical device and a transfer function for the medical device describing local device shape and orientation in response to user or computer determined inputs. The method allows guidance of an interventional medical system to a set of target points within the patient using a single-projection imaging system.